How can I find information on individuals for an event we're holding in the UK?

Firstly it should be said that when researching any individual, it's always worth checking whether you hold any exisiting information on them. This might be a colleague or other department, particularly if your organisation has had contact in the past. It's also worth asking your colleagues, managers, directors, CEO and trustees to see if they know any of the people on your list. In-house information is always a very good starting point!

However, there are many resources you can use to find information on individuals, some free and some subscription based. Below is a list of resources to consider. if you want to find out more about each one and what people think about them, visit the fResource database.

KnowUK www.knowuk.co.uk
Subscription resource which consists of a collection of UK-specific reference information from over 100 of the most widely used reference publications in the UK. These include:

• Debretts People of Today
• European Parliamentary Biographies
• House of Commons/Lords Biographies
• International Who's Who of Sport
• Law Society's Directory of Solicitors
• School's Who's Who
• Scottish Parliamentary Biographies
• Who's Who
• Who's Who in Education
• Who's Who in Northern Ireland/Scotland

KnowUK does offer a free trial of it's product and a number of libraries in the UK should have free access to it.

Corporate Databases
Obviously only useful if you're looking for contact information for company directors but some resources do give you access to home addresses which can obviously be useful. You could also try the Directory of Directors by Hemscott and Crawford's Directory of City Connections.

The most widely recognised corporate databases are:

• DASH/MINT/FAME - Bureau van Dijk (includes director home addresses)
• BoardEx
• Factiva by ProQuest
• Hemscott Company Guru by Hemscott
• Thomson Business Intelligence by Thomson

Debretts People of Today www.debretts.co.uk
Debrett's is a good source of information on the biographies of Britain's most distinguished figures (all 28,000 of them).  It includes Britons and  foreign nationals working in Britain whose achievements have raised them to renown as leaders in their fields, listing biographies or peers, clergy, academics, policiticians and business people alongside those of men and women from the world of the arts, media, fashion and sport.


Who's Who
There are a few versions of Who's Who produced by different companies, some of which you can see in the list above. Below are the two larger ones, which includes information on people in various countries.

• International Who's Who - published by Routledge
• Who's Who (including  Who's Who in America; the World; Asia) - published by Marquis

If you would like to add or amend anything on this FAQ, please contact us at: faqs@fresource.info